


A Day Without Yesterday - Sam's Shifting Angel

by Jenosavel



Series: Sam's Shifting Angel [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood Drinking, F/M, Family, Interspecies Romance, Memory Loss, Pain, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07, Shapeshifter, Slow Burn, Time Loop, Tragic Romance, original creature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 08:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20561609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenosavel/pseuds/Jenosavel
Summary: Sam and Dean meet a new kind of creature not mentioned in any lore. She comes with a tale that's hard to believe, but when Castiel brings supernatural evidence to bear, the brothers must confront the possibility that what she says might actually be true.Faced with the story of a time loop -and a relationship- that he can't remember, Sam finds himself yet again caught between an inhuman friendship and his brother's inflexible idea of morality.





	1. The Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Takes places sometime shortly before the events of S6E22. Contains spoilers for S6E11.

Dean hadn't been gone two minutes when the knock came. Sam looked up from his screen. The burger joint was just across the street, but even so it was too soon for Dean to be back with food. Besides, he wouldn't have knocked. Old caution made Sam pick up the knife from the table as he stepped quietly towards the door.

Through the peephole, he could see a woman standing on the other side of the door. She was nondescript. Brown hair, brown jacket, average height, entirely calm. In other words, she looked like exactly the kind of normal that didn't show up at a sketchy motel door at 11 PM.

Sam shifted his grip on the knife and kept it carefully out of sight as he opened the door.

"Um, can I help you?" he asked.

"Sam, we need to talk." Her voice was tired, but there was no urgency in it. She avoided his eyes, though, looking out over her shoulder into the night. She didn't look afraid, exactly, but something close to it. Worried. Avoidant. And something about her felt familiar, a smell maybe, but one he couldn't quite place.

"Do I know you?"

"Not that you'd remember, no," she answered too easily. "Sam, can I come in? Dean will be back soon and I want to tell you something before he gets here, but… please don't make me do this in the parking lot."

It could be a trap. There was no shortage of demons and spooks that had it out for the Winchester brothers, but this didn't feel like that kind of weird. It felt like some kind of weird, for sure, but not the kind he was going to have to fight. He knew better, of course, and he knew Dean would give him hell for it later, but he offered her an uneasy smile and stepped aside, opening the door the rest of the way.

The woman ducked inside quickly, giving one last glance out into the night. She went to the only table in the room. It was small, just big enough for two people. She sat across from the laptop that was still open.

Sam took his own final glance out into the night. If there was anything unusual, he didn't see it.

He closed the door and moved to join the woman at the table. There was no way to hide the knife, nor his intentions in having it, once he closed the door, so he tucked it into his belt as casually as he could. The woman saw it, of course, but her eyes neither lingered nor jumped away. A hunter maybe, or someone who wasn't afraid of knives but had no idea about the significance of the one the Winchesters carried.

"So who are you?" he asked. "How do you know who I am?"

The woman closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself for something.

"We worked together, Sam," she said, eyes still closed. "We worked together for two whole blighted years, and you helped me wipe them out of existence."

"Them?" Sam prompted. His brow knitted for a moment before he could smooth it again. There were a million questions her statement raised.

"The years," she answered, "we erased them. Two years worth of light-forsaken rainy Thursdays that don't exist anymore."

"A time loop?" That made more sense, at least, and answered some questions. It raised others, though. "Was it Gabriel again?"

"What? Who?" Her eyes popped open in surprise, and she looked at him for the first time. He hadn't noticed at the door, but now it was impossible not to see how tired she was.

"Nevermind," Sam said quickly. "You said there was something you wanted to tell me, and I'm guessing that wasn't it?"

"No," she agreed. "Sam, I…"

She hesitated, eyes darting away again. She pulled her hands out of her pockets to fidget at her fingernails. Her fingers were thin, not starved exactly, but she certainly hadn't been eating well.

"Sam, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna spit it out." She stared intently at her fingernails, fidgeting faster as she continued. "We worked together to end the time loop for two years. Two years where we both were the only ones remembering it. Towards the end we were… close."

Sam shifted his weight.

"And now I-"

Keys rattled in the door, and the woman's words cut off abruptly. Dean made it all of two steps inside before freezing and giving Sam the "do I need a gun?" look. Sam only shrugged apologetically.

"Why are you telling me this?" Sam asked, pushing on as if there'd been no interruption, but the woman didn't answer immediately. She watched Dean carefully, her tiredness now turned to steel, though she was no less ragged for it. Dean tossed the greasy bag on the table and leaned against the wall nearby.

"Look," Sam said. "If you know I don't remember, why come back?"

"Test me," she said, still staring at Dean.

"What?" the brothers asked in unison, their incredulity a mirror of each other.

"Test me, like you would any stranger you suspected," she repeated, but she didn't wait for an answer. Faster than Sam would have believed she was up and reaching and had his knife in her hands. Dean, already on his feet, had a gun drawn just as quickly.

"Lady, I don't know what's going on, but you better put the knife down," he said.

Sam slowly rose to his feet as well, hands out in a calming gesture, but the woman's posture wasn't aggressive. She yanked at the wrist of her jacket, pulling back both it and the loose sleeve of the shirt beneath until her forearm was bared. Then in one quick motion she pulled the blade across her skin.

It hissed and lit up like a campfire. She screamed, dropping the knife from limp fingers.

"Test. Me," she repeated through gritted teeth.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, and nodded.

One by one they went through the common checklist. No reaction to silver, salt, or holy water. No effect from iron. No emf. No reaction to fresh blood.

When the common tells turned up nothing, they moved on to more obscure ones. No compulsions over politeness or spilt sugar. No unusual temperatures or smells, no signs. Nothing.

The tests became more and more obscure, some for creatures they'd never even seen themselves, but whatever they tried, every single one came back normal.

All except for the dagger, anyway.

"So you're something we haven't seen before," Dean said, and Sam took a moment to be inwardly thankful that he'd grown beyond immediately trying to murder anything labeled "monster."

"Yes and no," she answered, nursing her freshly bandaged arm. She was no longer staring Dean down and seemed at least a little more relaxed, but she hadn't taken her eyes off him since he'd come in the room.

"I'm human," she said, watching him closely, "but also something more."

"Bullshit," Dean answered. "That's a pretty either or question, not one where you can just take a little of both."

"Call Cas," she said.

"No," Dean shot back without hesitation, "and how the hell do you even know about him? Who are-"

The woman opened her mouth to protest, but Sam could see the sparks already and knew he had to jump in.

"Look," he said, touching her hand. She flinched, but didn't pull away. "Cas has a lot bigger issues to worry about right now. We can't just call him for every little thing, and even if we did, he wouldn't come."

"This isn't some little thing," she replied to Sam. Her eyes were intense, but her tone was softer than it was with Dean. He scared her for some reason.

"Cas'll come," she said firmly.

"And why would he do that?" Dean demanded.

"He'll come," she said, still speaking to Sam, "because you'll tell him that you have a woman here who is like an angel but not an angel and is three times older than Michael. You'll tell him that if he wants a leg up in that civil war he's losing to Raphael, he'll get his feathery ass down here and prove a point for me."

Sam looked at Dean, but Dean only raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

"You're not an angel."

All three of them turned to see Castiel standing near the window. He took a few steps towards the woman, spinning in slow circles to gape at the walls. The walls were standard drab paint, as far as Sam could tell, but Castiel was acting like he'd stepped into a museum of fine art.

"She's not an angel," he repeated as he completed a second rotation.

"We got that," Dean agreed. "Question is, what is she?"

"She seems human, but she can't be human," Castiel said with certainty, pulling his eyes from the walls to look at the person sitting in front of him.

"Feel for my soul," she said. "You'll see."

Dean clenched his jaw. "Lady, you just like pain or something? This how you get off?"

She ignored him, staring at Castiel instead. Something flickered in her eyes that Sam couldn't quite place, and Castiel's brow knit.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked. "We're not kidding, this will hurt. A lot. Whatever you're trying to prove, we can find another way."

"Thank you," she answered, eyes flicking back to Sam, "but there's nothing else that will convince you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because we've done this before," she replied, "and this time I don't want it to take a whole year."

She turned back to Castiel, who was watching her quizzically.

"Can you really help against, Raphael?"

"I can," she answered quickly. Too quickly. Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"I'll do it," Castiel agreed, already reaching for his belt.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. You're just going to believe her?" Dean didn't quite grab Castiel's arm, but he might as well have.

"Yes. I believe her," Castiel agreed flatly, pausing with his belt half drawn off. "My true form is the size of your Chrysler Building. Hers extends past my vision."

Dean's eyebrows shot up, but he took a step back while Castiel removed his belt and walked up to hand it to the woman. She took it slowly, the corners of her mouth turning down. Then she took a deep breath, exhaled, and put the doubled over leather between her teeth with a nod.

Castiel's hand disappeared into her gut, and the screaming began.

The screams themselves were expected, but even so, Sam couldn't help flinching. It was hard not to flinch when you knew what that felt like.

The intense light spilling out of her eyes and mouth were also expected. What was not expected were the markings that lit up across the rest of the room as if someone had flipped on a blacklight.

Footprints glowed across the floor so thick they could barely be picked out from one another except at the edges and in the corners. Where they could be discerned individually, both boot treads and the pattern of bare toes could be seen.

The walls were painted too, all hand prints and smudges and smears. There was even one stray fingerprint on the ceiling. The table, the chairs, the door, even the beds and the unused dresser against the wall, all bore glowing patterns of contact as if someone had gone wild with glow-in-the-dark finger paints. But that wasn't all.

Sam.

Sam glowed through-and-through as if Castiel's hand had been in him rather than the woman.

"What the hell?" he breathed.

"What the hell!" Dean swore.

And then, as quickly as it had started, the glow was gone. Castiel took a bewildered step back looking down at woman. She spat out the belt and panted weakly, eyes closed.

"She's human." Castiel's words were barely audible.

"Ha ha, funny joke," Dean snapped.

"I'm not joking," Castiel replied with the deadpan seriousness that seemed to be his only expression. 

"Of course you're not." Dean threw up his hands. "You just want me to believe that Miss Light Show here is human?"

"She is," Castiel repeated. "I don't understand how, but she has a human soul and it belongs to that body. Not bought, not sold, not traded."

"But then," Sam looked from Castiel to Dean and back to Castiel. "What was all that?"

"There's something attached to her or-" Castiel began, but Dean cut him off.

"Hello, monster?" Dean sounded genuinely relieved, but Castiel only shook his head.

"No, not monster," he corrected. "It's like she said, like an angel. It's like a human soul had part of an angel grafted on. She has angelic properties, but she's not in a vessel. She is the vessel. She might also be the room."

"Bingo," the woman croaked, her voice raw from screaming.

"But that's not something that's possible," Castiel continued, as confused as Sam had ever seen him. "How can-"

"I'm not-" Her voice cracked and made it difficult to understand. She cleared her throat and repeated, "I'm not an angel. I'm a shifter."

"Lady, no part of this looks anything like shifters." Dean's voice rose with irritation.

"_Day_shifter, then," she said louder, straightening a little in her chair. "Not the slimy things you're thinking of."

"And why would-" Dean started, but abruptly stopped when the woman's hand was suddenly very much not a hand at all, and in fact looked a lot like a gun being pointed directly at his chest.

He put his hands up, but just as quickly her hand was a normal hand again and she slumped forward.

"Then, you knew what you were from the start." Sam frowned a little.

"Of course I knew what I was. It was you I needed to convince." She tried to push herself to her feet, but only made it halfway before plopping heavily back down in her chair.

"Well, you've got our attention," Sam said. "Consider us convinced. But can you explain it to us?"

"Yeah," Dean added, "starting with why you're lighting my brother up like a Christmas tree."

"I told you I knew you, Sam," she said, patting his hand. "We're all made up of the people and things and places that we've interacted with. I'm just more literal about it."

"So what, you eating my brother? Possessing him?" Dean took a step forward.

The woman's eyes went cold and sharp as they turned on Dean.

"The other way around, asshole."

"Wait, what?" Dean's voice rose again, and Sam froze, but Castiel walked between them.

"You said you could help with Raphael. Can you still do it? You don't look… well."

The woman nodded. "My body's in rough shape, but I've seen one sunrise so far. I've got more than enough juice to deal with an angel. Just uh… help me up?"

Castiel nodded, and pulled the woman to her feet. She leaned on him far too heavily to consider going anywhere near a fight, but Castiel didn't seem to care.

"Before we go," she patted Castiel's arm and pointed to the dresser by the wall, "I need to give them something."

As he helped her over, Sam looked at Dean and Dean's brow was furrowed just as much as Sam's own. They'd only been in this motel three days and this was the first they'd ever seen her, what could she have stashed here in that time?

The woman steadied herself against the dresser, freeing both hands to slide the top drawer open. From it she lifted a thick notebook with a heavy spine, the kind that hunters tended to keep, and held it out for Dean to take, since he was closer. He grimaced, but he walked over to take it anyway, bringing it to the table where he and Sam could look at it together.

"I'll be back soon," she said, nodding to Castiel. Then the two of them vanished where they stood.

Sam and Dean were left alone with nothing but the well worn book between them and the scattered remnants of the earlier tests they had run.

Dean flipped open the cover.


	2. The Journal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes places sometime shortly before the events of S6E22. Contains spoilers for S6E11.

Dean flipped open the cover of the journal where both he and Sam could read it for themselves.

_ Day 1 of Freedom _

_ I didn't wake in the same place today as yesterday, so that's a start. Unfortunately, it's still the same damn day with the same gray sky and only me to remember the monotony. Tonight I'm going to try this trick on this notebook, and if I'm lucky at least I can talk to myself that way and not feel entirely insane. Not feeling hopeful it'll work. _

_ Day 2 of Freedom _

_ It friggen worked. I can't believe it. I wrote something in here yesterday and it's still there today, even though this god damned day is still on loop. It's a little like jumping, only instead of connecting points in space I'm connecting points in time._

_Day 4 of Freedom_

_ The effect doesn't roll over, apparently. I wrote in here yesterday, but didn't do anything special other than that, and that day's entry is gone now. It's like a goddamned save in a goddamned video game. I have to intentionally make it after anything I want to keep. Which could have its benefits, I guess. Still, since it's a warping, it's very much not free. I'm going to have to be careful about what I nudge around. Something as small as the ink on the page of a book is almost free, so small miracle there, I guess. I don't have to go crazy faster. Anything larger, though… as expected, the cost scales exponentially._

_ If only I could use this to progress the damned rain to some sun then I'd be set, but that's more than a little out of scope at the moment. If I'd figured this out four months ago, maybe things would be different. _

Dean looked up at Sam, and Sam only shook his head. What was there to say? This sure read like powers adjacent to an angel's, only without the biblical dressing over top.

Dean flipped several pages ahead. 

_ Day 26 of Freedom _

_ I'm so tired of running into walls. I know the effect has to be astronomical. I can almost feel where too, but I just can't make it out from down here. Damn planets. We're not meant to be doing this kind of work from inside a well, but I sure as hell don't have the kind of reserves needed to just blast on out of the gravity. If I'd known from the start, this would have been easy._

_Every day the things I can do grow more limited, and it's terrifying. Who'd have thought I'd finally see a time anomaly for myself and end up stuck on a planet for it? I should have been in space for this. _

"The hell," Dean swore softly, pointing out the entry. "We got a real alien this time, you think?" 

Sam shrugged and swallowed and started skipping down the entries, reading one here and one there randomly. 

_ Day 29 of Freedom _

_ Really starting to panic about batteries now. I've got enough to last a while, and it's not like I'll die when they run out, but I don't think I have enough juice to solve this problem anymore. Mother help me, if I'm stuck in this looping day as merely a human I don't know how long I'll last before I off myself. Except we can't off ourselves, can we? So then I'll be watching this damned looping day as a corpse until the end of time, which may never even come because TIME IS LOOPING. _

_ Damnit. _

_ I need help, but who am I supposed to call? My nearest sister is 12 billion light years away and I couldn't even contact her without getting into the vacuum first, which, if I could do that I could probably just stop the loop myself. _

_ Day 37 of Freedom _

_ I must be going insane. I'm considering asking a human for help. A human. I've heard rumors online, though, and my options are drying up fast. This guy moves around a lot and trying to find him won't be easy, but in this one thing, at least, the looping will make my job easier. I can move around. He'll be spinning in place somewhere. I don't want to spend too much time and juice on re-saving my location back and forth across the country though, so I'll have to put in with the network. Who knows what state it's in? I'm a little afraid to look. Time's not supposed to loop. _

_Day 38 of Freedom_

_ Locally the network is affected the same way I am, memories intact but physicals reset. Wish my energy would reset too. Hope the rest of the network can remember enough to be eyes and ears still. I put out the call. We'll see what turns up. _

_ Day 41 of Freedom _

_ The network's still churning, but no sign yet. Effects seem consistent across this continent; just received word back from the other coast. I can still form memories in any part of the network, but none of my friends can. I wish I had a cache I could dip into somewhere out there, but no. Of course not. This was supposed to be a vacation, a rest, not bunkering in. I'm an idiot. An idiot searching for one human on a continent of millions. Billions? Who even knows. I deserve whatever happens to me. Lesson learned. You should always bunker in when dealing with gravity fields. _

Dean waited for Sam to look up. "Dude, she _ hunted _ you."

Sam's mouth tightened. He flipped a few pages ahead, stopping at an entry that had all together too many doodles around it in the form of tree branches and leaves and flowers. 

_ Day 67 of Freedom_

_ We found him! Or well, an aspen up in Minnesota did. Good old trees. Good listeners. Not enough trees in cities anymore._

_ I'm debating the best way to get there. That's several days drive from here at least, which means several rounds of saving. Probably cheaper to jump it, even though that's not cheap either. Speed of light gets me there with no stops in between though, just the one save to set up shop. I'll sleep on it tonight, decide in the morning. It's late now anyway. Reset is only 6 hours away. _

_ Day 68 of Freedom _

_ Decided to jump it after all, only to find I can't jump now. Whatever's causing this has me all twisted around inside. Can barely feel the next room right now. Good thing I decided not to try jumping straight up at this thing. Mother only knows where I'd have been flung to. The only thing worse than being powerless on a planet is being powerless in dark space. At least here I know there's a star nearby, if I can only figure out how to get at it. _

_I'm rambling again. Gotta save ink. Tomorrow I start the drive. Driving sucks. _

_ Day 73 of Freedom _

_ I'm in Minnesota. Settled and prepped as well as I can be. No sun here either, it's like the whole damn continent is under the same storm cloud. Caused by the same thing as the loop, maybe? Whatever's going on up there above the atmosphere, I hope I can get a look at it soon. _

_ Heading to bed early. Tomorrow's a big day. _

_ Day 74 of Freedom _

_ I bumped into him today. Literally. Clichéd, I know, but whatever works, right? He didn't even notice. A handshake or something would have been more sure, but this should have been enough. Now I watch and wait._

"What the hell," Dean swore, wiping his hand on his jacket. He hadn't even touched her, but he had touched the book. 

Sam felt cold. He turned the page. 

_ Day 75 of Freedom _

_ I think it's working. He seemed confused today in a way the others aren't. A few more days will tell for sure. Just gonna watch and wait for now. _

_ Day 78 of Freedom _

_ It's definitely working. He's pissed, frustrated, hates living this day over and over. I need to give him some space, time to cool and settle into this. I want to talk to someone that isn't me so badly, but I can wait a few more days. _

_ Day 79 of Freedom _

_ He's smarter than I gave him credit for. I think he's watching me. Good. Smart is good. I wasn't betting on smart. That'll make things easier, I hope. There's gonna be old fashioned engineering to do before this is done, and I never was much of an engineer in any of my lives_. 

"Lives _ plural?_" Dean said, leaning back. "Yeah, human my ass. I've read enough. Gonna have a chat with that dagger when Cas gets back." 

"Dude, she's fighting angels right now, and doing it while half dead, from the look and sounds of it," Sam shot back. He didn't mean to be sharp, but he was more than a little freaked out. "What are we supposed to do against that?" 

"Dagger sure seemed to hurt her," Dean pointed out, standing and stretching. "I'm gonna get some sleep. It's almost the ass end of morning and I doubt that angel war's gonna be done in one night." 

"Yeah, smart," Sam said, but he pulled the journal closer. He couldn't put it down now. 

_ Day 80 of Freedom _

_ He confronted me today. He thought I did this, and I guess I sort of did, to him anyway. I told him what I know about it, though, and he seemed to relax a lot after that. He thinks I'm only human. That'll help for a while. _

Sam flipped a handful of pages, but then stopped. The headings had changed. 

_ Day 7 of Cooperation_

_ I need to know more about what's going on above the atmosphere, there's no way around it. Sam's exhausted what he can dig up with the satellites that are already out there, or at least the ones we can get access to, but none of it is the kind of data I need. Hell, can humans even collect the kind of data I need? Probably not. _ _I'll need to send a part of me up. I need to feel the shape of the gravity out there._

_Blood tech. I haven't touched blood tech since the Mayans. Hope I still remember how to do it. _

_And anyway, before we can start building anything, I'm going to have to show Sam this saving thing. Building tech is more work than we can do inside a single reset._

_ This isn't going to go well, I'm sure. _

_ Day 8 of Cooperation_

_ It didn't go well. Could have gone worse. We're still working together. My strength is not great, though. These saves are going to add up fast. I don't have much time to drag this out. I need to see if this trip was a waste or if Sam can actually do the things rumor says he can. _

_ Day 9 of Cooperation_

_ Well that went even worse. People skills. Fuck. I probably should have known. I'll give him a few days to cool off. Apparently, despite the badassery in the rumors, he is, in fact, sensitive about the demon blood thing. _

Sam's heart pounded faster as he read. It was like hearing Lucifer spout off prophecies about the apocalypse all over again, only this time the bad things had already happened and he just didn't remember them. 

His eyes flicked up to where Dean had sprawled on one of the beds. Asleep or not, he wasn't moving. Sam flipped several pages ahead anyway, hiding the entries from himself as much as his brother.

The words on the new page were noticeably fainter, sort of faded. 

_ Day 27 of Cooperation_

_ Finally. I think he's going to try helping. At this point I'm so weak that I'm not even sure I can show him how. The ink is about all I can effect now, at least not without dipping into that last reserve I need for the eventual fix. I have to treat that as sacred. In any case, if Sam can't do this we're both screwed. He just doesn't know it yet._

_Why did I ever mention the blood? Such a setback. It doesn't even have to be blood, not with me. That would be faster, sure, but there are other easier ways, especially at the start while he acclimates. I should have known better._

_ Last minute worries: I hope I didn't miscalculate. If he actually needs to draw on my power, he's going to hit the same dry well I'm hitting. I hope this thing he does is something else. _

_ God, kid. Please be special. _

_ Day 28 of Cooperation _

_ It worked! I mean, he can't do anything with it yet and I don't think he could tell anything even happened, but I felt it. Or, I mean, I didn't feel it? I felt him channel, and I didn't feel it draw from me. It could still have drawn from me. Hard to say. We could still be screwed. I didn't feel it though, so that's a good sign. Won't be able to tell for sure until he gets stronger. _

Sam scanned passed a handful of ambiguous entries until suddenly the ink was bold again. One entry was faded like old watercolor and the next was dark and sharp and clear. He began reading the fresher ink. 

_Day 32 of Cooperation_

_He's strong enough to attempt a save. Tomorrow we will know more. _

_Day 33 of Cooperation_

_ It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. I am tired. We have a chance. _

Sam got up and poured himself some whisky.

Had he drunk that woman's blood then? And if not then, later? How long had it taken her to convince him? How far through the two years had he lasted before he'd given in, _ again? _ Was this what his life would be? Over and over again repeats of the same theme? 

Was her blood addictive the way demons' blood was? Was he hooked now, without knowing it? 

He set the glass down with a loud chink, too loud. Dean sighed and rolled over. 

"Sorry," Sam whispered.

He flicked on a lamp and flicked off the main room light, then picked up the book and sat down on his bed with it. He read until he fell asleep, slumped back against the wall with the book still in his lap.


	3. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes places sometime shortly before the events of S6E22. Contains spoilers for S6E11.

When Sam woke in the morning, Dean was already awake, running through maintenance on one of their shotguns. 

"You finish that thing cover to cover?" he asked incredulously, eyes flicking to the book Sam still held. 

"No," Sam answered, shifting stiffly. It was an awkward position to have slept in. 

"So what'd I miss? Anything good?"

Sam snorted. "Time loop had some astronomical cause. A bunch of homebrewed NASA stuff. I think we made a weather balloon and some kind of satellite both."

"Huh," Dean paused to consider it. "Didn't get to the part yet where your monster friend's chowing down on you?" 

"What? No! Dean!" Sam shook his head. He got up and made his way to the bathroom to wash his face. 

"And you didn't get to the part where you were chowing down on her either, then?" 

"Dean!" Sam didn't even bother turning around to shout it. It was a joke, but one that hit a little too close to home. Too many of Dean's jokes were that way. 

"Really though," Dean said as Sam came out of the bathroom again, "nothing else weird or creepy?" 

"Not really," Sam lied. "At some point there started being pictures though." 

He retrieved the book and joined Dean at the table, flipping well past the parts that made any mention of blood. There were photographs taped down on some pages, photographs clearly showing Sam and the woman and strange contraptions in varying stages of completion. He turned to a few and pushed the book towards Dean. 

"You uh, you look mighty close there, Sam," Dean observed. "You think you got it on with monster lady?" 

"Dean, can we not?" Sam sighed and pulled the book back. There was still a lot he hadn't read, but the latter parts seemed to mostly be repeats of technical details that he couldn't make heads or tails of and logs of which attempts failed or succeeded. It was probably great reading if you were currently trying to fix your way out of a space-spawned time loop, but otherwise wasn't particularly interesting. 

"What do you suppose she wants?" Dean asked. "I don't think she came and told us her life story for fun." 

"Not sure," Sam answered, flipping through more unread pages of notes. "Missed the camaraderie maybe? We did spend two years working together, apparently." 

"Two years?" Dean whistled. "You definitely hit that." 

Sam didn't even acknowledge it this time. He marked his spot with a finger and then let the following pages fall through his fingers like a flipbook, watching for anything that looked like diary entries again instead of logs and schematics. He felt a hitch as he was flipping, and paged back to the spot. The pages with photos sometimes felt like that, but this time he didn't find any photographs. 

"That's weird," he said absently. 

"What?" Dean didn't look up from the oil cloth he was working over a small piece of metal. 

"There's pages missing. Three, maybe four of them." 

Dean did look up that time. "Last entries before the missing stuff?" 

"Let's see, just…" Sam scanned the page, paused, scanned the page after, and slapped the book shut. "Nothing. It's nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Awfully strong reaction to nothing. You hit that, didn't you?" 

"Damnit, Dean," Sam got up from the table. 

"You _ did._" This time it was less joke and more surprise. "God Sam, what is it with you and monster chicks?" 

"She's not a monster."

This time it wasn't Sam that had replied. Dean spun to find Cas behind him, alone. 

"Well she sure ain't human, no matter what you say," he replied.

"Where is she?" Sam's voice was taught, and Dean cast a disppointed look in his direction. 

"What, you worried about stalker chick now? God, please don't hit that again." 

Sam only tightened his jaw and gave Castiel a pleading look. 

"She's outside," Castiel replied. Sam practically ran for the door, and Castiel was left staring in confusion at Dean. Dean shrugged. 

"That kid and monster chicks, I swear." He shook his head. "Did she at least hold up her end of the bargain with you? Raphael get the old once over?" 

"I'm no longer losing the war in heaven," Castiel agreed. "I'm not winning it either, but I'm not losing. Excuse me. I need to go." 

Dean shrugged and considered going after Sam, then his eyes fell on the journal and his mouth tightened. He started reassembling the gun he'd been working on. He'd give them five minutes, no more. 

* * * * *

Outside, Sam didn't immediately spot the woman. She wasn't in the parking lot, and he couldn't see her through the front office window either. Across the street from the motel, next to the burger joint, was an overgrown field in true backwater midwest style, and while he couldn't see her there either, something pulled him that direction. 

He found her just off the shoulder of the road, lying down on the grassy slope of it in the weak morning sun. 

"It's not raining today," she said as he approached. 

"No it's not," he agreed, sitting down in the grass. She looked a shade less human in the wan light, though it could have been his imagination, knowing what he knew now. 

They sat quietly for several minutes before Sam worked up the courage to speak. 

"Last night, before Dean came, you were trying to tell me something," he started. "I think I know wh-" 

"I wiped your memories, Sam."

"What?" Sam's eyebrow twitched as his brow furrowed. 

"You could have remembered, like I do."

She tilted her head without lifting it, looking up at him, and this time she didn't avoid eye contact. There were dark circles under her eyes now that hadn't been there last night, though her expression was far less tense.

"I pushed you back into the loop, Sam, just once, before I ended it. I made you forget."

"Why?" Sam's mouth twitched. "If half of what was in the journal was true-"

"You'd have left your brother," she answered simply, still holding his eyes. "But like this? Not remembering? I don't think you'll leave him, now. I couldn't let you leave him."

"Not even for a child?" Sam's jaw clenched, and his heart hammered. 

"No, not even for that," she answered, and closed her eyes. "He'll try to kill me eventually, you know that, and your leaving would only speed up the process. Better I lay low, stay out of sight. Avoid that whole mess."

She sighed and pushed herself up on her elbows, trembling with the effort of even that small movement.

"You look like a strong breeze could take you out right now," he said softly. He shouldn't have let Cas take her into battle, what was he thinking?

The woman snorted. "Don't let this flesh fool you. It'll take more than some rain and angels to finish me off."

Then, as if to prove the lie in the words, she started struggling to her feet and swaying like Dean after a particularly "good" night. Sam instinctively jumped up to help her. 

"We're older than Death, you know," she added, leaning heavily on his arm, "my people, I mean. Older than Death and quite impossible to kill." 

Sam could only laugh at the incongruity of it. Everything else about her had seemed so earnest, but this, this might as well have been drunked Dean boasting. "Well then, Miss Older-Than-Death, why don't we get you inside where you can rest." 

She shook her head at that, clutching Sam's arm harder as the motion set her off balance. "Can't stick around, I'm afraid. Don't trust your brother. Entirely too stabby with the not-quite-human demographics."

"Just for a little while," Sam offered, "to get you back on your feet. I'll make sure Dean behaves."

"If only it were that simple," the woman chuckled, "but you know it's not. Don't worry. Dean will come around sooner or later, and when he does, I'll be back. I'll make sure you know your son."

"S-son?" Sam stammered. "How do y-" 

"I can change this body into a bird, Sam," she laughed outright this time, "or a tree, or a rock, or a car. I know full well what's happening inside it." 

Sam swallowed hard. "Will he be… human?" 

"And more," she agreed, "like I am, like you could be if you wanted to."

Sam's jaw clenched and unclenched.

"Tell me straight, what did you do to me? Am I…?" He wanted to say _turning_, but couldn't force the word to come out and had to change tact. "I read the journal. I know I did… things." 

"You're still you, Sam." She touched his arm reassuringly. "You're you, and free. What you did in those pages was a different life. That's my gift to you. You get to make that choice again, for yourself, without a threat hanging over your head. If you never want to see me again, you can make that choice this time." 

"I don't know what I want."

"You don't have to know right away. There's no rush."

"No rush? We're having a kid and I don't even…" Sam choked and had to start again. "I don't even know your _name_." 

She smiled and turned to face the rising sun that was just now peeking over the treetops. Sam turned to watch it too. 

"Dawn," she said. "You can call me Dawn." 

"Dawn," Sam repeated, "not going to forget that one very s-" 

He had to catch himself as her weight abruptly lifted off his arm. He glanced around, but she was gone, vanished like so many angels and demons before her.

"Did you find her?" Dean's voice called from behind him, and Sam turned to see his brother walking over with a shotgun and the knife. 

"Nah, must have split," Sam lied.

"Figures," Dean replied. "Wanna get out of here?" 

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "The sooner the better." 


End file.
